Think like a cop, Eve ordered herself. Facts, logic, instinct. “Szabo spends time at the school, with Alexi et al, sniffs it out, suspects, hints around. Maybe trying to get Alexi to make a move. He kills her.” Eve rolled it around. “Awful damn tidy, but sometimes it just is.”
“Well, the old lady told everybody Beata was still alive, so that doesn’t ride the train very well.”
“She poofs. She’s got a job, her classes, landed a part. Sounds like everything’s working out for her, but she poofs. Odds are she didn’t poof voluntarily—that’s Lloyd’s take, and I agree.”
“Three months is a long time,” Peabody put in. “A long time to hold somebody who doesn’t want to be held. And for what reason?”
“Szabo didn’t want to believe the girl was dead, and who can blame her?” Eve added. “Not only her great-granddaughter, but she overrode the rest of the family so Beata could come to New York.”
“Had to feel sick about it.” Like Eve, Peabody scanned the street, the buildings, the traffic. “What did she say exactly? To you, I mean.”
Eve didn’t want to go back there, to kneeling in the street, the woman’s hand clasped with hers. Blood to blood.
“She said Beata’s name, she said she was trapped, couldn’t get out. The below bit, the red door. She asked for help.”
You are the warrior. I am the promise.
Fighting to stay steady, Eve shoved a hand through her hair. “She was dying.”
But her eyes, Eve remembered, had been alert, alive.
“We comb through the alibis, check her other habitats.” Do the work, Eve thought, take the steps. “I’m going to check in with Morris, contact the arresting officers about Alexi, get their take on him.”
“Beata’s disappearance and the old woman’s murder—if they’re not connected, it’s another devil of a coincidence.”
“We pursue the investigation as if they are. We figure out one, we’ve got the other.”
“I could tag McNab, have him meet me, go by the theater where she was supposed to work. Lloyd covered it,” Peabody added, “but we could try fresh eyes on it.”
“Good thinking. Send me whatever you get.”
She needed thinking time, Eve told herself as they split up. A stop at the morgue to confirm TOD—which was just stupid, since she’d been right there at TOD—to see if Morris or the lab had been able to get a handle on the type of blade used, if the sweepers had found any trace evidence.
Deal with the facts first, she thought as she got in her vehicle—then move on to theory. But she sat a moment, suddenly tired, suddenly angry. It felt as if something pushed inside her brain, trying to shove her thoughts into tangents.
Not enough downtime, she decided. No time to take some good, deep breaths between cases. So she took them now, just closing her eyes for a moment, ordering her mind and body to clear.
Alive. Trapped. Help.
Keep your promise!
The voice was so clear in her head she jerked up, had a hand on her weapon as she swiveled to check the seat beside her, behind her. Her heart pounded painfully against her ribs, in her throat, in her ears as she lowered her unsteady hand.
“Stop. Just stop,” she ordered herself. “Do what you have to do, then get some sleep.” She pulled away from the curb, but gave in to need and called home.
And her heart slowed, settled a little when Roarke’s face flowed on-screen.
“Lieutenant, I was hoping I’d—What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Well, nothing except having some old Hungarian woman bleed out under my hands. Tired,” she admitted. “I’ve got to head down to the morgue because there was a glitch with the TOD. I need to get it straightened out, then talk to a bunch of cops about a Russian ballet guy. Sorry,” she added. “This one literally fell in my lap.”
“I’ll meet you at the morgue.”
“Why?”
“Where else does a man meet his wife—when they’re you and me?” She looked pale, he thought, her eyes too dark against her skin.
“Yeah, okay. I’ll see you there.”